


Lemuel Takes Care

by LeeMorrigan



Category: Midnight Texas (TV)
Genre: Aubrey was trouble, Bobo and Olivia friendship, F/M, Fiji and Olivia friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Lemuel and Olivia forever, No one's like Lem, Olivia is an awesome friend, True Love, loving/support, matchmaker Olivia, some domestic Olivia and Lem, wound treatment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 10:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12130059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeeMorrigan/pseuds/LeeMorrigan
Summary: Lemuel takes care of Olivia, even when she makes it clear she doesn't need it. He also looks after the town, but chief in all his thoughts and concerns is always Olivia. When she comes back from a good job or a job gone to hell in a hand basket, he is always waiting for her return.





	Lemuel Takes Care

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of these characters or MIDNIGHT, TX- I'm just taking them for a stroll. Takes place before the pilot episode by a few days, and does have some spoilers for info that will not be revealed in the show till episodes 7 or 8 of season 1, and it alludes to backstories and well as events that will unfold in the pilot. Vaguely inspired by the Fuel song BAD DAY.  
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy!

Lemuel sat at his place behind the front counter of the pawn shop, reading an old copy of The Collected Works of Poe. It had been a gift from Olivia, as a joke, not long after she moved in. It was something she picked up in a second-hand bookshop, during one of her jobs, and it still had the 2.50 sticker on it when he found it waiting for him on a shelf the day she had left for the next job. The woman could have a very interesting sense of humor sometimes.

As he finished USHER and was about to begin reading RED DEATH when he heard the tell-tale sound of Olivia’s Landrover coming up the street. He smiled. She was driving a little too fast, so the mission had gone well. Getting up, Lemuel headed up to the storefront to greet his beloved.

He watched as she parked and got out of the vehicle. Her usual blonde hair was hidden beneath a powder blue wig that matched her fingernail polish and too-short skirt. He would guess, from the rest of the outlandish attire, her target had been at or near some sort of Comic Con type event and Olivia was dressed in character cosplay. It was not something Lemuel was overly familiar with, though he learned a lot reading Olivia’s research over her shoulders.

She smiled at him, lips painted a darker shade of blue and eyelids sparkling with blue glitter. Very different from his Olivia, though still devastatingly beautiful, as far as Lemuel was concerned.

“Any luggage?”, he asked.

She shook her head, holding one bag in her right hand. Lemuel stepped forward, reaching to take it. She had once asked him if he needed to do it from habit of his slave days, as she was aware what such living conditions could do to a person even years later. He had assured her it was because he was a gentleman and because he liked doing little things for her.

As he took the bag, Olivia leaned up to press a sweet kiss to his lips. He smiled into the kiss. He would never, ever tire of this. These quiet moments. Moving his free hand to offer it to her, Olivia took it with a smile and a shake of her head. She always did accuse him of being a romantic. Lemuel never once denied it.

While stowing her bag away, after emptying the contents in order to place them in the dirty clothes bin, Lemuel turned to see a trail leading back to the bathroom. A left shoe near the doorway, a glove next to that, and the other glove a couple feet further away. The other shoe and black leggings were next, then a bright blue denim vest a few feet further. At the bathroom door, a wig and belt lay. Lemuel traced the path, picking up items as he went.

If he had not been awake to greet Olivia upon her return and had woken with her already in the shower, this is how he knew the job had gone well and she was alright. The trail of clothes, wigs, tools, jewelry, and shoes. If the job had gone badly, she would have returned driving the car at the exact posted speed, her attire would have already been put where it belonged- wig on the block, clothes in the bin- without anything left for him to tend, and she would have taken a shower so scalding hot that the scent of steam and pain would have wafted into the bedroom, waking Lemuel. No matter if it were high noon or just after dark, that smell always woke him.

On days when the mission went well and all was right, Olivia left a trail for him to follow and drove a little too fast. In other words, she was less controlled. The rigid control was the dead giveaway that something had gone wrong. Lemuel hovered a moment at the bathroom door. Olivia was taking her usual lukewarm shower, and knowing her, it would be one just long enough to wash the hotel smell out of her hair. She always claimed she hated the smell of hotels that clung to her hair after a job or a recon for one.

Once he was done cleaning up after her, Lemuel returned to the front desk. Much as he may have wished to join Olivia in the shower, that had always been off-limits. She had been taking one, not long after they began their relationship, and when he opened the door to join her, she nearly ripped his nose off. She told him, in a hushed but angry tone, that she was not a cheesy slut who did erotic shower scenes. He had been confused, at first, but agreed to her request he never try joining her again.

He had finished two more short stories before Olivia appeared. It was nearly sunrise and in half an hour, Lemuel would need to go downstairs to sleep and Olivia would probably stay with him a little while before she headed over to Fiji’s or grabbed something at the diner. Lemuel set the book aside in favor of watching Olivia walking up towards him in a pair of artfully faded jeans and a sleeveless shirt that did nothing to hide her shape.

“Still reading that old thing?”

He smiled wider at his lover.

“It was a gift, and I do enjoy his prose. He had a gift for turning a phrase.”

Olivia shook her head, coming to stand beside Lemuel.

“I had thought it would earn me a lecture about Midnight not being some Poe-joke, when I got that.”

Lemuel nodded.

“I gathered as much, when you left it for me rather than giving it to me.”

She nodded.

“Was still getting a gauge on your sense of humor at the time. I had pictured you being a little less funny and a lot more… touchy.”

He let his hand trail along her hip until it rested at the small of her back, his fingers tracing lazy patterns against her skin.

“Not that kind of touchy, you nerd.”

He chuckled lightly at her teasing, even as she shoved his arm away and moved past him to look out the windows.

“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

Lemuel let out a sigh.

“Bobo asked Aubrey to marry him.”

Olivia’s head snapped around to look at him so quickly, Lemuel was shocked she hadn’t cracked something.

“No?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Lemuel nodded, not really understanding it either.

“But him and Fiji?”

Lemuel let out a breath.

“I’m afraid, with Fiji always ducking or dodging at the last minute, he’s finally convinced that she just wants to be friends and any signals otherwise were his imagination, wishful thinking, or simple misunderstanding.”

Olivia let out a small growl.

“I don’t trust her.”

Lemuel didn’t need to ask which woman she was referring to. He did not trust the woman either. She had latched onto Bobo a bit too quickly, for Lemuel’s liking. Even if Bobo was a good looking man with a business, home, and boy scout attitude. And he had a few other ‘red flags’, as Olivia would deem them.

Aubrey’s reaction to learning Olivia was dating the big black guy, how she reacted to Bobo’s letting said big black guy live in the basement and work at the shop, how she made a face every time she was about to enter the tattoo parlor down the street to get her nails done by Chuy while his husband worked on giving tattoos on the other side of the room, and how she still seemed to have trouble maintaining eye contact with Madonna and Fiji while talking to them. 

Lemuel did not trust this Aubrey as far as Olivia could throw her, not even half as far. However, Bobo was a grown man free to make his own mistakes, and if Fiji did not care to be plain with her intentions towards Bobo, then Lemuel supposed there was nothing for it. Olivia’s pacing showed she had come to much the same conclusion.

“You’ll wear a hole in the floor.”, Lemuel cautioned.

“Bobo deserves it.”

Lemuel arched his eyebrows.

“If he lets Fiji give him the slip, he deserves to have to fix the holes I wear into the floor. With his bare hands. On a really hot day, when you can’t help.”

Lemuel smiled.

“You have to let them work this out. They are grown-ups and you aren’t their big sister.”

Olivia narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before she relented with a huff, moving over to Lemuel’s side and letting him hold her close.

“Sun’s coming up soon.”, she mumbled into his shoulder.

“I know.”

They stood there a moment longer before Olivia moved back, taking Lemuel’s hand and tugging him along behind her. He let her drag him down to their rooms, then he let her strip him and have her way with him before he finally passed out. There were very, extremely rare exceptions to his being grumpy about being awake after sunrise. Olivia being in his arms was at the top of that short list. Mostly followed by Olivia waking him up as she returned from a job, Olivia doing something too entertaining to miss, or Olivia sleeping peacefully beside him without his having had to leach from her. That was pretty much the whole list.

When Lemuel woke up the next night, he found a note attached to the bathroom mirror. Olivia’s slanted handwriting, letting him know she had gotten a call about a job only a couple hours away and it was supposed to be super-easy. Lemuel arched an eyebrow. The so-called Easy Jobs were the ones that worried him the most. When they went wrong, they went very wrong, and Olivia generally came home bloodied and bruised.

And, as it would turn out, this job was no exception. She returned to town driving the exact posted seed at 11AM, two days after her initial departure. Lemuel woke the smell of pain and steam, finding Olivia’s favorite black wig resting on a bust and her suitcase emptied with the dirty clothes neatly placed in the dirty bin. He got up and went to find her not standing in the shower, but rather standing beside it, her wounds oozing a little after their time under the intense spray.

Lemuel grabbed the first aid kit Olivia kept under the sink and he gently took her left hand to work on the bruised and cut palm. He would guess she fell and had to grab something with sharp pieces, to not fall further. Once that was done, he moved upward along her arm to the cut just below her clavicle. It was not very deep but it was long. 

As he worked, Olivia continued to stare into the mirror, giving it an empty glare. Lemuel worried when she did that. He could not read her so well at those times and she often had to deal with her father whenever she had been wearing that look whilst peering into a mirror. Lemuel tried not to look at her reflection as he rendered first aid.

Next, he cleaned the gash on the back of her left shoulder, taping gauze over it, before moving to check on the bruises on the left side of her face. She must have turned enough to avoid an outright black eye, though the area over her eyebrow was still bruised, as was the arch of her left cheek. Lemuel looked her over, seeing only bruises otherwise, along her left ribs and the outside of her left hip and thigh. 

Gently folding a fluffy towel around her shoulders and leading her to the bedroom so he could get a few ice packs and let her dress. He came back to find her doing something she almost never did; wear one of his pajama tops, buttoned all the way up and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to dry her hair using only her good arm. Lemuel handed her the ice packs and moved to work the towel through her long, bleached-blonde locks for her until he was satisfied the towel would not further aid the drying process. He tossed it into the bathroom and helped Olivia get the bed turned down so she could lay back comfortably.  
Once he was settled next to her, she gave him a tired smile. That was an encouraging sign. She often was angry and a bit too hard on herself, even by her normal standard, when missions did not go well.

“Go back to sleep, Lem. I’m good.”

He nodded. 

“I know. I just enjoying looking at you before I go to sleep.”

She quirked the corners of her mouth slightly. Lemuel counted it as a victory.

“I’m sure I look great. Bruised, bandaged, and bags under my eyes.”

She was always beautiful to him, though he knew now was not the time to say as much. Now was the time to just sit there and let her know that he was not going anywhere.

“Just the same.”, he said.

“Go to sleep, Lem.”

Closing his eyes, he let himself have the appearance of sleep. He could fool Olivia, mostly due to years of experience in schooling his features and breathing rate. Within a few minutes, Olivia was curled into his side, her head resting over his silent chest, her bad leg curled overtop Lemuel’s legs, and her injured arm going over his middle. She would not have done this believing him fully awake. Another quirk of her nature that Lemuel did not question, only accepted.

A lot of people had hurt, misused, abused, and neglected Olivia. First her mother died, then her father abandoned her to the care of his trophy wife, a string of men used her as their piece of meat, her first mentor left her for a newer model, and her manager- or whatever you called a guy who got jobs for assassins- only used her because she was good. Lemuel refused to be someone who did any of those things. He had vowed to be the one person who stood by Olivia, respected her, took care of her, and loved her.

When it was time to go man the shop, Olivia made her excuses to head to Fiji’s and Lemuel just kissed her as she left, then headed up to the pawn shop. Bobo was waiting for him as he counted out the money from two sales made that day.

“Olivia alright? I thought it looked like she was limping?”

Lemuel nodded. Bobo worried for Olivia almost like she was his sister, despite Lemuel being quite sure Olivia could kill Bobo without too much fuss, if he ever gave her a reason.

“Rough day at work. But yes, she is limping a little. Nothing some ice packs and sensible shoes won’t fix.”

Bobo smiled. They both knew Olivia had a taste for heels that made everyone else’s feet hurt looking at them. Although, they did tend to make people look where she wanted and keep their minds on the tracks she wanted them.

“Made a couple sales, so it’s been a good day up here. Oh, here.”

Bobo pushed a book towards Lemuel. The collected works of Poe.

“You left it on the second shelf of the counter. Didn’t want anyone accidentally trying to buy it.”

Lemuel smiled, nodding his thanks as he took the book.

“Next you’ll be readin’ Bram Stoker.”

Lemuel made a face to show his distaste.

“Not a fan of DRACULA?”, Bobo teased.

“Not even in the slightest. I cannot turn into a mist or a cloud of bats. Ridiculous. And my image in any mirror is quite clear.”

Bobo just smiled and locked the cash box, sliding the key into a drawer within his desk. A drawer that was never locked.

“Fiji’ll fix her right up.”

Lemuel could not disagree. Olivia liked Bobo, but Fiji was the only person besides Lemuel, that she trusted at all. Then again, Lemuel could not imagine that anyone would be able to keep Fiji at bay for long. There was something inherently good and trustworthy about the witch down the street.

Trading places with Bobo, Lemuel readied himself for the nightshift at the pawn shop as Bobo headed off to have dinner with Aubrey. Lemuel shook his head. Nothing good would come of that relationship, he was sure. He just hoped it did not hurt Bobo, or Fiji, too much when it inevitably blew up. He let out a sigh, then picked up his book. He still had four more short stories and all the poetry to get to. He opened the book first to Olivia’s note of introduction, smiling at it, before moving to the page he had left off on.


End file.
